I went and found the official MS press-release about Albany, and from what I can tell Outlook is NOT part of the subscription service. It appears that the Albany suite packages Office Home & Student with OneCare and some other products. This appears very much to be targeted at home consumers, and...

This impacts mobile devices as many people ask what they sync with on their PC. This is another way of purchasing OUTLOOK. I like the fact that it looks like the subscription method offers updates to new versions as well.

I see many people complaining that OUTLOOK no longer comes with their device, and they also complain that they cannot sync with Vista Mail. So this Office subscription service might answer these complaints. Cnet.com reports on this here .